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Subject: Re: How many killers? & Random chess & Has anyone NOT tried this?

Author: Roberto Waldteufel

Date: 11:39:11 09/27/98

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On September 27, 1998 at 09:36:12, Jari Huikari wrote:

>On September 24, 1998 at 06:19:18, Roberto Waldteufel wrote:
>
>>Searching captures first is indeed very beneficial for alpha-beta efficiency,
>>but I think that just about all other programs also do this, as it is well
>>known. By the way, you should include promotions as well, whenever there is
>>one available, as these too cause a big change in material.
>
>(I)
>What about advancing white pawn to seventh (black pawn to second) rank?
>Should also be examined early?

I have not tried this in my move ordering, but it might help to include these
after the captures and promotions. I know that some programs include these moves
in the quiescence search, which seems like a good idea, but then you must
examine all replies (as if it were a checking move) to see if the pawn can
promote.

>
>(II)
>HOW MANY killer-candidates your programs store? (To be tried if they cause
>a cutoff.)
>

I only store one move per position, but others use two or more.

>(III)
>I added random feature to Nero 4. (Explained in the end of its FAQ-file.)
>Makes randomly one of the legal moves. Can OCCASIONALLY beat KASPAROV... :-)

I may be misunderstanding you, but if it plays random moves, I doubt if it would
even beat a weak player, and certainly not Kasparov - I would need to see the
game to be convinced! I think this is the way some programs work on "easy"
levels, ie deliberately playing some random (usually weak) moves to give the
opponent a better chance of winning, but I would not recommend it for a serious
game. But perhaps by "random" you mean a random choice from several equally good
moves, or from an opening book move-list?

Best wishes,
Roberto

>
>Latest version of Nero  http://www.math.jyu.fi/~huikari/NERO4.ZIP
>
>					Jari



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